Shattered Dawn
Summary: The Evans were not truly Evans; no, in fact, had they been given a choice they would have been born as Walkers. HP x DGM
Chapter One - The Man With Secrets
1995, Number Four, Privet Drive
Soft humming floated out from the kitchen in a relatively noisy household. A thin woman with curly brown hair and almost too much neck moved around, cooking a meal for her precious Duddykins since her despicable, horrid nephew was out shopping for groceries. She paused when she heard a few quiet knocks on the front door, but she knew she simply could not leave the stove while she answered it, lest Dudley's food be burned; so she called out for Vernon to answer it. The portly man grunted in acknowledgment and stomped to the door, muttering something like 'it better not be another one of those freaks'.
He opened the door and squinted at the man on his doorstep. "Who the hell are you?" he thundered.
Petunia froze when she heard a familiar voice say, "Does Petunia Dursley live here? I would like to have a little chat with her, it's been quite a while, you see."
"I don't know what you want with my wife, but I'm not letting a freak like you into my house!" shouted Vernon.
The voice chuckled in amusement. "Oh, don't be that way, she knows me. Let me in, or I shall use force," said the voice.
"What force? I could tap you with my pinky and you'd fall right over," grunted Vernon.
"Force it is then, since it appears you are resisting me," said the voice cheerfully. There was a loud thud and Petunia heard the sound of the door slamming into the wall. There was a shout, the sounds of a scuffle happening in the hallway, and then footsteps. Footsteps that Petunia knew all too well. When he finally emerged into the doorway, she quickly averted her attention back to the food she was cooking, though she knew she was just delaying the inevitable. His mere presence in the room tickled her senses and clawed at her mind, demanding her to look his way, to see him again and embrace his familiarity. She turned off the stove, dumped the food on to a plate, and called out to Dudley, all the while never glancing in the person's direction.
"Petunia," his smooth voice glided over her, and it was exactly the same as she remembered it more than twenty years ago. "Petunia, look at me."
Hesitantly, she raised her eyes to look at him, drinking in the wrinkle-free features, the youthful, yet mature and handsomely boyish face. It was terrifying to think that he had not aged a bit over the course of the years – how odd indeed – and was here in her house, having picked a fight with her husband and came out unscathed, still wearing an old-fashioned, button-up, white long-sleeve shirt with a black tuxedo jacket over it, complete with a silky red ribbon tied at the base of his collar. Still the same as always, that man was. Her voice caught in her throat as she struggled to find the right words to say.
"Grandfather," she breathed, gulping silently at his amused smile. "It's wonderful to see you again."
"But of course, Petunia," he said, the rich tenor of his voice flowing like liquid into her eardrums. He stepped aside elegantly to admit a nervous waddling boy into the kitchen.
Petunia immediately sat Dudley down in a chair and set the plate of food in front of him. "Here, Duddykins," she cooed, momentarily forgetting about the man in the doorway. "Eat it all up. Harry will be back with the groceries soon, so he'll make you dinner tonight."
Dudley just stuffed his face. The man in the doorway made a face.
"What horrid manners your son has," he said.
Petunia wrung her hands nervously. "Please excuse him, I am afraid that I've had not the time to teach him properly," she said lamely. "But, what are you doing here after so long? I – I find it quite odd that you are still alive, and – well, why is it that you look like you are still twenty-one?"
Something in the man's eyes frightened her a bit, something very dark flashed in the dark-brown eyes.
"Petunia," he said, not unkindly, "Let us discuss this elsewhere where we cannot be overheard."
Vernon was in the parlor, so that room was out of the question. They went upstairs in the hallway, and crammed themselves into the small bathroom at the end of the hall.
The man turned to face the mirror. "Petunia," he said, his voice losing its characteristic warmth and kindliness. "I have a secret that I have decided to tell you. If Lily had been alive this day, I would have told her too."
Petunia trembled. "But her son is alive." The words rushed forth from her being without her permission. The man perked up.
"She had a son?" His tone was all too eager. "Where is he? What's his name?"
Petunia swallowed hard. "Harry Potter," she whispered, clutching her breast absently. "He is out shopping right now –"
The sound of the door opening downstairs, followed by Vernon's distinct roar of "Where have you been, boy?", confirmed that the topic of their conversation had returned from his trip.
"Well!" the man seemed delighted. "If he truly is her son, I should inform him of this as well."
"What about Dudley? He's my son, he should be told," Petunia spoke up.
The man waved a hand lazily. "Do what you will, I doubt that boy of yours will even care about the secret I am about to reveal, and he will go and blab it all out to his friends and neighbors about me," said the man.
Petunia sighed. "Very well, he will not join our conversation, Grandfather," she murmured.
"Excellent choice, my dear."
They entered the kitchen once again, where a skinny black-haired teenager was putting away the newly bought groceries.
"Harry," called Petunia, catching the teenager's attention. "There's someone you and Dudley should meet."
Dudley glanced at her from his place at the table, mouthing 'me too?' Petunia nodded.
The man dipped into a low bow. "How do you do, Harry?" he said, straightening. "I am Aaron Evans, your great grandfather."
"What?" Harry gasped. Dudley stared at the man with wide, round eyes.
"Yes, it is hard to believe that I am that old. I look like I am about twenty-one, yes?" They nodded. "Harry, please come with me. There's something I need to speak to you and your aunt about."
"What about me?" Dudley whined, frowning when he realized he wasn't included.
"Oh, this doesn't concern you, boy," the man said. "We will be done in a moment, so please wait for us."
Harry was confused but he followed them back up to the upstairs bathroom anyway.
"So –" Harry hesitated. "You're my great-granddad?"
The man sat heavily down on the closed cover of the toilet. "Look, before I tell you two my big secret, you need to promise that you will reveal this to no one. And I mean it." His dark eyes were no longer glinting with liveliness. In fact, the man's entire posture seemed . . . weary, tired, and exhausted. Harry's instincts screamed that the man was suspicious, but he ignored it because he wanted to know who exactly this man was, and why he needed to tell them something so secret they could not inform anyone else.
They promised.
"Thank you," the man whispered. He closed his eyes for a moment. "I – my real name isn't Aaron Evans, believe it or not." Both Petunia and Harry stared at him, bewildered. "That was an alias I conjured for myself almost a hundred years ago. My real name, which I haven't gone by since the days of when I was . . . an exorcist –" Petunia and Harry shared puzzled glances "– is Allen Walker. The reason I look so young, and the reason why I'm still alive even after a hundred years, is that my body is co-habited with a man from the Noah family, a group of people who called themselves the 'true' apostles of God." Before their astonished eyes he changed in appearance. His dark-brown hair bleached until it was entirely white, his dark eyes lightened to a liquid-like silver-gray, and a strange red scar appeared on the left side of his face. "His name is Neah. He was a traitor of the family, and I have inherited his ability to use a piano to control a dimensional traveling system called 'Noah's Ark'. I am telling you this because the 'play' has begun once again – a man by the name of the Millennium Earl is setting the stage for a new tragedy to begin. It involves weapons from the past that can only be destroyed by either the Noah family or the power of a substance called Innocence." Here, he pulled off his left glove and showed them the black hand with a cross on the back of it. Petunia and Harry both stared at it in shock and wonder. "I am warning you now, neither you, nor the magicians of this time, can stop him. Only accommodators of the Innocence have a chance, and I'm afraid I am one of the only ones left."
Harry frowned. "What do you mean we can't stop him?" he asked.
"The Millennium Earl, as well as the Noah family, is immune to the spells cast by the Wizarding World," Allen replied.
"But then aren't they in danger too?"
"Of course! But Innocence is not compatible with magic users, as far as I know," Allen said. "If you'll excuse me, I've got to be on my way." His odd appearance receded back to its other form when he got up.
As he left, his hair and skin seemed to darken for a split moment, from white to black, from pale to ashen. But the next second he had assumed his alias once more, and Harry was convinced he had really just been seeing things.
This is the next chapter. I am most surprised that I finished this chapter more quickly than the second chapter for Break It Down. Please review, to tell me what you think. No flames.
MangaFreak15